


better with you

by professortennant



Category: Bon Appétit Test Kitchen RPF, Chef RPF
Genre: F/M, Jealousy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-18
Updated: 2019-10-18
Packaged: 2020-12-21 14:10:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21076181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/professortennant/pseuds/professortennant
Summary: While in Oklahoma, Matty makes a few observations about Brad and Claire's relationship that get Brad thinking. Except when he gets back to New York, Delany is in his spot at Claire's station and he thinks maybe he got it all wrong.But then he and Claire go for a drink and maybe he had it right all along, after all.





	better with you

**Author's Note:**

> and another! i'll never be over jealous!brad and matty's voice was SO much fun to write. hope you like this one!

Matty watches in fascination as, for the third time in two days, Brad Leone stops mid-story, pulls out his ringing phone, and grins broadly, answering the request for a FaceTime call with Claire Saffitz.

“Brad! Oh, thank god. I cannot find the tape _anywhere_ in this kitchen.”

“And why do you think _I_ know where it is?” Brad teases, propping his chin up in his hand. 

“Because you hide everything!”

“Damn right,” he nods sagely, still grinning. “Wouldn’t have to hide things if everyone respected the rules of the kitchen, Claire.”

“I do respect the rules of the kitchen. Now will you please tell me where the hell you hid it?”

Brad pretends to think for a moment, eyes tilted up to the ceiling and finger tapping on his chin. Matty watches the interaction with wide-eyed wonder, flicking from Brad’s over-exaggerated movements to the pixelated image of Claire’s face on his phone, rolling her eyes and looking at him like she’s just waiting for his song and dance to be over so he can finally tell her what she wants to know—like she knows he’s just going through the motions for her and there’s no doubt that he’ll give her what she wants. 

“Okay, okay, I _guess _I’ll tell you this time, Saffitz, but you can’t go around tellin’ everyone my secrets, okay?”

“Okay,” she says, her own goofy, indulgent, affectionate grin on the screen. 

Matty listens as Brad tells her to go into the spice cabinet and check behind the sumac. Claire’s disbelieving laughter rings out into the hotel room loud and clear and he doesn’t need to look at Brad to know that Claire’s laughter is worth the phone call already.

“Okay, well, mission accomplished. Thanks, Brad.” There’s a brief pause, like she’s considering her words and then, “When are you coming home?”

Brad sits up at this, rolls his shoulders back, raises an eyebrow, and absolutely _beams_ into the camera. “What, you miss me already, Claire?”

Matty wonders if he should clear his throat, remind his buddy that there’s another person in this hotel room. Because right now? Brad Leone only has eyes for the pixelated woman on his screen. 

“Oh my god, Brad. I’m hanging up.”

“Hey, I’ll be back in the kitchen in no time. Couple more days and then I’ll be buggin’ you like I never left.”

“Can’t wait.”

Matty’s eyes bug out of his head at the soft, wistful tone he can hear in Claire’s voice and watches as Brad waves at her like a bashful little boy before disconnecting the call.

Matty smacks Brad’s shoulder, laughing when Brad looks startled, holding his shoulder. “You dog! You didn’t tell me you and Claire finally got it together! When did that happen!”

“What the hell you talkin’ about, Matty? Claire and I are just friends!”

The tattooed chef snorts, shakes his head in disbelief. “Friends, my ass.”

“Hey!”

“Man, look. I’m your buddy, so it’s my sacred duty to tell you this. You ain’t foolin' no one.”

Brad is silent and stony-faced, watching and listening warily. Matty claps him on the back, shaking his buddy as if hoping to shake some sense into him. “You think I’m FaceTimin’ my buddies at home? My friends? The only person I FaceTime is my wife. And the only person I look at the way you look at Claire is my _wife_. You get what I’m sayin’ here?”

“Matty,” Brad says helplessly, rubbing a hand over his face with a groan. “It’s not that easy. Claire and I—It’s complicated. We’re just, okay _I’m_, just waiting for the right moment. When things aren’t so crazy.”

“You’re a fucking moron, Leone. A girl like Claire ain’t gonna wait around for a dumbass like you forever.” And then, a sly, lewd look. “Go Claire noodling. Go stick your feelings in there and catch you a girl.”

Brad wrinkles his nose and laughs, pushes his buddy. “Jesus Christ, you couldn’t have thought of a better analogy or some shit? Alright, alright knock it off. Aren’t you Canadians supposed to be gentlemen?”

“We are except when our friends are being dumbasses.” He goes serious, then. “Seriously, man. If you care about her even half as much as I think you do, go for it. Only thing I wish I’d done with my wife was tell her how I felt sooner. All that missed time. Take it from your ole pal, Matty, okay?”

They don’t talk about Matty’s relationship advice for the last few days of their trip, but for the first time since Brad made the decision to tuck his feelings for Claire away in the back of his heart, he starts to wonder if it’s time to revisit the possibilities of a _them._

Claire FaceTimes him at the airport on the way home and laughs with her head thrown back at his joke about getting a good arm workout in as he flies home, the joke accompanied by his arms flapping dramatically. 

She bites her lip and tucks her hair back behind her ear, tells him to have a safe flight and she can’t wait to see him in the kitchen.

He smiles the whole four hour flight home and thinks about the pale, inviting column of her neck and the way her laugh made his chest feel tight and warm.

______________

Except, Brad is back in the kitchen the next day and is starting to feel like a world class idiot. He had let himself hope, for just a second, that maybe Matty was onto something, had talked him into seeing something between he and Claire that she clearly doesn’t feel.

She’d welcomed him back to the kitchen that morning with bright, wide eyes, playfully pulling out a roll of bright green tape from her purse and pushing it into the center of his chest. “Rules of the kitchen, my ass,” she teases. He’d held the tape to his chest for a second, watching her saunter off into the kitchen towards her cubby, the one next to his, and stow her stuff, rolling up her sleeves and pulling her hair back and getting ready to take on the day.

He’d thought—

Well, he’d thought a lot of things that were clearly way off base. 

Because it’s not Brad at her side while she shoots Gourmet Makes. Alex Delany has made himself quite comfortable at her station while she rolls her eyes and bosses him around and bumps his shoulder as she puts together a Delany Special Hot Pocket. 

Brad doesn’t know how to wiggle his way in between them, how to tell Delany that that’s _his_ spot on her station, that Claire’s giggles and attention are _his._ It sours his first day back and he contents himself with throwing his energy into his food, standing at the stove and whisking and emulsifying the pan sauce aggressively, trying to stuff the feelings leaking out of their box back into his chest. 

Except then she did sit next to him at the stove and joke about compression like it was their own personal inside joke and her eyes had the twinkle in them when she talked about leaking and stuffing and—

He fucking hates being confused and Claire always leaves him feeling off-balance. The confusion is making him cranky and he starts shutting down, can feel it in the way his sauce starts to break and the way the sound of Delany’s voice carrying across the kitchen sets his nerves on edge. 

Claire’s not the only one who needs time to process, sometimes. 

But Claire won’t give him a fucking break. She’s circling and poking at him with her smiles and jokes and he finally snaps at her when she holds out a flaky piece of pastry out to him and asks for his opinion, wonders if it’s too salty.

“Claire, I’m in the middle of something. Why don’t you go ask Delany?”

The hurt, vulnerable expression on her face haunts him the rest of the day. She doesn’t let him see it for long, though. The expression is immediately covered up with a too-bright smile, eyes flicking downwards like she does with strangers when she gets nervous or uncomfortable. 

He hasn’t seen that expression since her first day in the kitchen and regret immediately lances through him. 

“Right,” she says, voice high-pitched and speaking too quickly, already taking a step backwards. “Sorry to have bothered you.”

Brad feels like an ass the rest of the day, especially when Claire slips out the double doors of the kitchen with Sohla in tow. Claire’s head is down low and Sohla’s hand is on her shoulder comfortingly and even Brad can put together that on a day where she kicked Hot Pocket ass, he’s the one blemish on a pretty perfect day. 

He burns three more batches of pan sauce before tossing his towel and calling it a day.

He grabs his backpack and switches out his beanie for his baseball cap and tells Gaby he’s out for the rest of the day. She looks at him knowingly, but doesn’t say anything.

The thought of an ice cold beer or something stronger is just crossing his mind when he exits the elevator, anything to help erase the ache in his chest today, when he bumps into Claire and Sohla and Carla in the lobby, chatting softly. 

“Have a good night, ladies,” he calls out as an olive branch, hiking his backpack up on his shoulder. 

Sohla watches him with dark, careful eyes, Carla meets his gaze head on, and Claire—Claire doesn’t look at him at all. The shame and hurt makes his chest feel tight and his head dizzy. Nothing about the way he’s leaving things with her feels right. The flight home where he’d napped and dreamed of her felt like a lifetime ago. 

“Hey, Leone!” 

Carla waves him over and Brad knows something is up because Sohla looks startled and Claire is looking at her with a look of betrayal.

He joins them—he does as he’s told—and stops a few paces short of where he normally would. The distance between his elbow and Claire’s feels like a chasm. The urge to be close to her isn’t new but ever since Matty convinced him there was something there, that the urge meant something (“You fucking moron. No, that is _not _a normal thing between friends! What? You wanna be touchin’ me right now? That’s what I thought.”), well he’s been hyperaware of how much he wants and needs to touch her.

“What’s up?” He hopes his voice is as light as he’s trying to keep it. 

“We were just about to head out for a drink, I think Claire could really use one today.” Brad ducks his head at Carla’s pointed tone and he nods.

“Yeah,” he says softly. “She does.”

Brad wants to nudge her shoulder with his and tease her about the pastry universe opening for her as always, but she still isn’t looking at him and it feels like maybe she wouldn’t want that, want him.

“Yeah,” he says instead, tightening his grip on the strap of his backpack. “Claire deserves anything she wants today.”

His emotions must be closer to the surface than he thought because that definitely comes out a little rougher than he intended, a little huskier. It makes Claire look at him for the first time in hours though. And when he can finally see those big brown eyes of hers, something loosens in his chest. 

Carla looks between them, grinning in a way that reminds him distinctly of Matty Matheson. “Anyway,” she continues. “We were gonna take Claire out but me and Sohla gotta go help shoot some wrap-ups and there’s some last minute marketing meeting Em called.”

Sohla raises an eyebrow. “We do?”

Claire stares suspiciously at her.“Yeah, when did this happen? You just said—“

“Yeah, well, that’s the biz. So, maybe, if you’re not doing anything Brad, you guys could...”

Claire stares at her friend in betrayal, eyes wide. It feels like he’s missing something—a feeling he’s intimately familiar with when it comes to women. But he’s not about to let a chance to take Claire out pass him by.If nothing else, he can apologize for being a jealous ass. Well, maybe he’ll leave the jealous part out. 

“Yeah,” he says amiably, risking a glance at Claire who looks surprised. “My treat, Half-Sour.”

She looks at him then, and he feels like he’s one of the junk foods she’s meant to recreate. She’s measuring him up, evaluating him, breaking him down into his base parts and trying to decide how to tackle him.

“Well, if it’s your treat...” She bites her lip and then hugs her friends goodbye, murmuring something low in Carla’s ear that makes Carla bark with laughter and shoo her away. 

Brad waves goodbye as well and shoots her a crooked grin, stepping to the side and sweeping his hand ahead of them.

“After you.”

_______________

The walk around the block to their favorite corner bar is a quick one. He hates that things are awkward enough that he thinks twice about his hand at the small of her back, just barely there, to guide her through the door and into the dark, cozy bar. 

But it’s still _Claire—_Claire, who he has been down in the kitchen trenches with since her first day, who may be competitive as hell but doesn’t hold grudges. And when she orders top-shelf liquor with a mischievous twinkle in her eye (“What? You said it was your treat.”), he knows they’re going to be okay.

They bypass their usual booth (it’s big enough for half the TK crew to sit comfortably), drinks in hands, and instead settle in a secluded two-seater couch along the back wall. It looks roomy enough, but when Brad folds himself down into it, he realizes he’s pressed tightly against her from shoulder to ankle.

“Um, tight quarters.” He laughs nervously, unsure where they stand on the whole physical contact front after their misstep earlier today. “We can grab another table or—“

Claire sips her drink, considers him. “I’m good here.”

Brad feels the warmth of her: her thigh against his, her foot nudging his as she gets comfortable on the couch, her eyes on his.

Something loosens and settles from the day. She’s looking at him again and she’s not running away. He settles into the couch too, tucks his arm along the back of the couch behind her. The movement frees up more space between them and she leans towards him a little.

They spend a few minutes talking about what’s next for her in the Test Kitchen and she graces him with an exaggerated shudder when she mentions Sour Patch Kids and Warheads. It makes him laugh and clink his glass to hers. “I don’t have a doubt you’ll nail it, Claire. You always do.”

She bites her lip and narrows her eyes at him, takes a long sip of her drink. It looks like she’s biting something back and—well, maybe he doesn’t know a lot about women but he knows she wants to say something now.

He clears his throat and figures he’ll get the door for her. “So, I was not myself today.”

She raises an eyebrow, either surprised he’s bringing it up so directly or because she’s in agreement. Probably both. Claire’s good at multitasking. 

“Yeah,” she said slowly. “You didn’t seem yourself today. Kinda figured you’d be happier to be back.” She looks at him, unsure—like she’s scared he’ll say something insane like he misses Oklahoma. “Wanna tell me what’s going on? I don’t think Oklahoma jet lag is gonna be an excuse,” she teases lightly. But he can see her grip on her glass is tight and he can feel how tense she is beside him. She’s waiting for bad news, like he could ever say that it’s _her_ that’s the problem.

“Claire, it was just a bad day in the kitchen. Bad juju. Really.”

He thinks that would almost be convincing and pass for an apology of sorts if he was able to look at her instead of into his drink and if it didn’t sound like he was trying to convince himself. 

“Bad juju,” she says slowly, mulling over the words. “Yeah, I’m familiar with how quickly the kitchen can turn on you.”

It feels like a peace offering in return and he pounces on it. “Exactly! I seen your Cheez-Its video, kitchen had it out for you that day.” He beams at her because no matter what he’s feeling about their relationship, he is proud of her. She’s always been talented but she’s grown since her first day in the kitchen. 

Claire waves down the waitress and orders another round for them and returns her attention to him, head tilted and considering. He gets that sensation he’s being studied, evaluated again.

“You watched my video?” she asks curiously. 

He drains the last of his drink to stall for time, heart racing. That wasn’t exactly supposed to be common knowledge.

“Well, I—y’know, plane rides are long, Claire! And there was in-flight WiFi and I’d seen all the movies on the lil’ screen so I just, thought I’d check it out! Since I wasn’t around for that one.”

She takes the fresh drinks from the waitress with a grateful smile, tucks her hair behind her ear in fond remembrance. “Yeah, the kitchen wasn’t good to me that day. Delany and I blamed you for that, by the way,” she laughed.“You bring good juju to the kitchen. We need you around here.”

It sounds like a compliment but his head is buzzing with _Delany and I _and he can feel the green-eyed monster roaring to life beneath his chest.

“Yeah, well, I’m glad Delany was there for you.” And that _definitely_ was harsher and more bitter than he meant and he drains his second drink in three large gulps, lets the alcohol burn the jealousy out of his chest. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asks, sitting up straight and trying to catch his eye. “I thought you liked Delany?”

“Clearly not as much as you do,” he says sourly. He wants to blame this on the alcohol, but even top-shelf liquor won’t touch his head like this for another few drinks. This is pure jealousy. 

“Oh my god,” she says, slumping back against the couch, staring at him incredulously. “Brad, are you—Are you _jealous? _Of _Delany?”_

He doesn’t say anything, just ineffectually tilts the ice from his empty drink into his mouth, desperate for any drop of liquor that may be lingering in the glass. This isn’t how he wanted this night to go. The plan was to make things up to her, patch up his mistake, buy her a drink, and text Matty that he was wrong, _so wrong_, about he and Claire. 

But now he feels exposed and on display, like Claire has finally figured out what he’s made of and how to take him apart and put him back together. All he can do is wait for her to take her ruler and knife to him and cut him open. 

What he doesn’t expect is her hand in his, taking his empty glass from him and putting it on the side table, before slipping her hand back into his, squeezing to draw his attention. When he finally looks at her, her head is tilted, her grey-streaked hair falling like a curtain around her face,her brown eyes wide and expressive and so, _so_ tender.

“Brad,” she says gently. “The only reason Delany has been hanging around like he was today was because—was because—“

He leans forward, turns his palm against hers, tries not to think about how hot her hand is and how easily he dwarfs her smaller hand.   


“Because why, Claire?”

She licks her lips, glances up at him from lowered lashes, and takes a breath like she’s steeling herself for a confession. “Because I was going kinda crazy in the kitchen without you around.” Her lip wobbles and she lets out a shaky breath, like she can’t believe she said the words out loud. She shrugs helplessly, like now that she’s said something, she may as well say it all. “Turns out you keep me calm and no one else knows how to handle me when I get, y’know, all _me.”_

He laughs at that, knows exactly what she means—can envision her frazzled expression and her hair pulled back in a messy bun and the groans and sighs and attitude that accompany a bad, frustrating day in the kitchen. 

She grins at him, licking her lips. “But, uh, Delany took one for the team and stepped in as best he could. I just do better with you around, Brad.” She nudges her fingers into the gaps of his fingers until he’s spreading his hand for her, letting her thread their hands together. 

He stares at their joined hands, his ears ringing with her words and their implications. Suddenly, he’s back in that Oklahoma hotel, Matty’s words in his ears: _A girl like Claire ain’t gonna wait around for a dumbass like you forever._

“I do better with you, too,” he confesses, thumb stroking over the thin skin on the inside of her wrist, tracing the line of the blue veins peaking through her pale skin. “Not just in the kitchen,” he clarifies. “Just, y’know, in general. I, uh—Well, see, the thing is, Claire. I—“

He huffs, frustrated. Words just aren’t his thing, no matter how much he actually _likes_ words and definitions and funky pronunciations. So he does what he does best: let’s his actions speak for him. 

“Fuck it,” he murmurs, leaning towards her while simultaneously tugging on their joined hands to pull her closer to him. He catches her face with one big hand, cradling her jaw in his palm and guiding her mouth to his. 

Grapefruit and vodka remnants cling to her bottom lip and he makes easy work of licking it away, pressing into the kiss and licking at the seam of her mouth, asking for permission for more. Because he _needs_ to know what she tastes like, needs to know if she’ll sigh into his touch and clutch at his hands and shoulder and press him back into secluded couch and take control like he knows she wants to. 

When she opens her mouth beneath his, it’s all of that and more. She groans when he slides his tongue over hers and whimpers when the tip of his tongue brushes over the roof of her mouth. Beneath his fingertips, he feels the goosebumps on her skin. He slides his fingers up into her hair, lets the thick strands tangle in his hand and he adds this to the list of knowledge he now has about her: her hair is so fucking soft and she mewls softly when he tugs at the strands.

He breaks the kiss, panting and trying to catch his breath. She chases after his mouth, demands another kiss, like she can’t go one more second without his mouth on hers now that she knows that’s what he wants.

Their lips brush softly once, twice, three times before Claire gets the giggles, disbelieving that they’re _here_ and doing this, buries her face into his shoulder and lets him hold her, his palms rubbing over her back in wide, sweeping motions, occasionally reaching up to stroke over her hair. 

Her lips brush over the tendons in his neck and he drops a kiss to her head, brings his lips to her ear. 

“What are you thinking?” 

She looks up at him from where she’s cradled in his arms and she reaches up with trembling fingers to trace the curve of his jaw and the line of his nose. 

“I’m thinkin’ I’m really glad you’re home.”

He smiles, nips at the pads of her fingertip and leans down to kiss her softly, murmuring, “Me, too,” against her mouth. 

(The next morning, he slips out of her bed and presses a line of kisses across her shoulders and to the base of her neck. She let’s out a little snuffle, still asleep and reaches for him half-heartedly, trying to keep him pressed behind her for warmth. “Be right back,” he murmurs, kissing the shell of her ear. He putters around her kitchen, gets a pot of coffee going for when they eventually both drag themselves out of bed. Before her forgets, he sends a text to Matty.

_You were right about me and Claire. Call you later to tell you everything. Thanks, bud._

He screenshots the string of emojis his friend sends him—a series of confetti cannons, hearts, and a few confusing emojis he’ll have to ask Claire about: eggplants and peaches?

When he slides back into bed, curls his frame around Claire’s and pulls her against his chest and buries his face in her hair, inhaling deeply, he knows he’s in New York to stay for a while.)


End file.
